Sen. Mitt Romney doesn’t understand the outrage over mail-in voting.
President Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was considering stripping federal funding for Michigan and Nevada over their decisions to send all residents an absentee ballot application as many states expand their mail-in-voting options because of the coronavirus pandemic. In response to Trump’s threats, Romney touted the vote-by-mail process in his home state of Utah.
“In my state, I’ll bet 90% of us vote by mail. It works very, very well, and it’s a very Republican state,” the GOP senator told reporters.
Utah has conducted mostly mail-in elections for several years and has remained in the hands of Republican lawmakers throughout that time. Trump won the state in the 2016 presidential election after earning 45.1% of the vote. His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, earned 27.2% of the vote, and Evan McMullin, an independent candidate, took home 21.3%.
Romney’s experience with vote by mail has been positive, but many other Republicans have sided with Trump in questioning the security of mail-in ballots. The president has claimed that vote by mail would create a “great Voter Fraud scenario,” while others have expressed concerns about the logistics of switching to a predominantly mail-in election by November.
In Wisconsin’s recent primary election, thousands of mail-in ballots were not counted due to technical glitches and mailing issues.
